Tinseltown fare has become too predictable—and, I know, that’s a statement as shopworn as a Julia Ryan (er…Meg Roberts?) romantic comedy. Moviegoers know it almost instinctively, as decades of sinking attendance figures demonstrate. Film audiences are tired of tired plot lines. Of tired characters. And especially of the oh-so-tired-I-haven’t-slept-since-1987 communitarian values—values so tired, in fact, that they’ve been known to induce sleep in crack-addicted spider monkeys.

The advantage of B-movies is that they’re able to slip under the radar of Hollywood’s PC Values Police. Or at least we used to call them B-movies, back in the days of the old studio system. Today we call these small features “indy flicks,” or “late-night erotic thrillers,” or “Joe Bob Brigg’s Drive-In Theater.” Some critics, like Roger Ebert, call them “guilty pleasures.”

But whatever you call them, today’s B-movies are often the last outpost of individualism in Hollywood. That’s not to say Hollywood gives us the kind of individualists we’d like to be or even see. Howard Beale growling, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” while slowly going insane is hardly an inspiring figure. But like the other characters we’ll discuss here, at least Beale was shouting from the rooftops instead of singing with the choir.